David Corbett's Comments
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 3:01pm EDT
Ann: I thought I answered your question, but it got lost: I read Jim Crumley, Daniel Woodrell, Alan Furst, and Robert Wilson religiously. I also like Pelecanos, lehane, plus a lot of brits/scots/irish: Denise Mina, John Harvey, Jake Arnott, ken bruen. I read mostly for research though, now. (Currently: Fiasco.)

patrick: peter gessner of my firm just came out with a book, but I don't think that's the one you're citing.

Jeffrey: I became a PI because two of my friends in acting class roped me into it, and God bless them. I was on the fence, acting vs. writing, and the PI work becamse my years at sea. I loved it. The most important characteristics: persistence, and the ability to empathize.


Patrick
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:56pm EDT
BCM: I'm genrally stunned by the way people behave, on the job or off. I was actually more appalled, though, when I did a drive-along with my local police force. I saw some things I never saw as a PI (people are pretty cleaned up by the time a PI enters the picture). There's just a side to poverty, in particular, the degrading nastiness of it, that really hit me in the face when I went out on the streets with the cops. Some folks rise above it quite bravely. Those who don't can break your heart (or tunr your stomach).
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:53pm EDT
By the way: excuse the typos. I was trying to type fast to get to all your questions.
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:49pm EDT
Arlene: I was very much influenced by Robert Stone. Not so much greene, though I loved The Power and the Glory. I want to read more. I'm ashamed to admit I've never read le carre, but I intend to rememdy that this summer. I also read Pete Dexter a lot, Ward Just.
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:47pm EDT
jeffrey: PIs on TV bear no resemblance to the oone I know, and what they do bears no resemblance to the work I did. I haven't written a PI novel yet because I don't know if an honest one would sell. I like tha adage: Write what you don't know about what you know. In short, use your imagination, based in the facts of your world, but not tied to them.
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:45pm EDT
A.C.: the most challenging case was the People's Temple Case, because the stories people told were so heartbreaking. They really eblieved they wre building something new and great, founded on love and peace, and it ended so hideously (and had been heading that way for some time). As for Michael Jackson, we're supposed to keep our opinions to ourselves, though I seem to be one of the only people associated with that case who's doing that. Let me say that I thought the most recent prosecution shooldn't have been brought--it was a bad case based on phony "evidence." But I think Mr. jackson is in a pathogical state of denial about a great many things in his life, both internal and external. he is very ill-served by some of the people around him, and if there is one guy on the planet who could use a true friend to tell him the honest to God truth, it's the King of Pop.
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:36pm EDT
Melrose: Like a lot of Americans, I think, I don't want our military placed in harm's way unless it's to defend a genuine US interest, and by that I don't mean the consumerist lifestyle. I don't want soldiers and marines getting killed or maimed so I can get gas under #3 a gallon. I also think that if these young men and women are sent to war, the rest of us have to chip in meaningfully. We have not been asked to sacrifice anything in support of this war (except, perhaps, our civil rights), and I find that mind-boggling. I think the war has distracted us from the real threat of terrorism, and has instead fueled a terorrist threat where none existed before. And I came to these opinions largely by reading a man named Andrew Bacevish,a midwestern catholic Conservative whom I first read regarding the war in El Salvador. He was a colonel then, and with three other colonels wrote a scathing analysis of the counterinsurgency abilities of the Salvadoran military, saying basically they could not win the war against the insurgents. And they didn't. This is why I find using the salvadoran counterinsurgency as a model for Iraq baffles me (beyond the fact the Latin America and the Middle East are so historically and culturally different it would take weeks to discuss it). Mr. Bacevich went on to teach at Princeton and Boston University, and is a respected commentator on military and foreign affairs, and I found his opinions incredibly leanred and insightful. he opposed the Iraq war as early as 2005, and said we should pull out. Sad footnote: his only son was killed in Iraq last Sunday, Mother's Day, by an IED.
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:28pm EDT
Boy, I'm really falling behind here, sorry. Patrick: no, I didn't personally work on any Tong cases, but my firm did. And no, our office was out in the Haight.

A.C.: I don't see myself moving any further out of the genre than I already am, I suppose. I'm already a "tweener," considered on the line between genre and literary fiction. I just turned in a MS that my editor think is a literary novel (I thought it was a comic thriller: you see the problem).

Janet: I do a lot of my PR myself, with the help of a private publicist. I set up bookstores, I let her set up radio and TV and speeches.

Kiley B: It wasn't a PI experience that got me interested in El Salvador/Blood of Paradise. It was meeting a woman whose father had been a colonel in the military, left in disgust at the corruption, and then was murdered in 1980 by unidentifed gunman. That just opened the door for me, and I found the country fascinating.

Who have I missed?
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:21pm EDT
Now, for Paul's question (or "bitchy snipe" as Patrick put it). If I looked at my numbers every day I'd go insane. I've actually made the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list twice since the book came out, and climbed as high as #3 nationally, so I've got few complaints. As for the Booklist and PW reviews, they were the least favorable of the reviews I received, and the fact they're the only two posted on amazon is a little frustrating. We've contacted amazon and have tried to get them to post the Kirkus and Washington Post reviews, the latter of which was glowing (it called Blood of Paradise not just an example of the best in contemporary crime fiction, but contemporary fiction, period). Amazon has yet to oblige.

But I've been even more gratified by e-mails I've received from knowledgeable readers who have embraced the book: one from a documentary film maker who worked in El Salvador during the civil war, one from the boss of Gilberto Soto (the Teamster who was murdered in El Salvador, and to whom Blood of Paradise is dedicated), a Salvadoran woman who now is a registered Republican--and, last but not least, Admiral James Stavridis, the commander of the US Southern Command, who picked me to be the inaugural speak for SOUTHCOM's author series.

So no, I'm not going to whine about reviews. (But, if you want to read more reviews, go to my website: www.davidcorbett.com)
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 2:12pm EDT
Great to be here on Gather. I'll start with the first question from Adam. The main benefit of being a PI was that I met people from various walks of life that I never would have met otherwise: drug dealers, murderers, extortionists, arsonists, the various henchlings that make such things happen, cops, FBI agents, DEA agents, prosecutors, defense laywers, their families, their neighbors. I spoke with them one on one, sat in their homes, met their eyes as they told me what they had to say. You realize quickly just how mistaken you've been about what sorts of people commit crime, what sorts of people enforce the law. The odd, inimitable, quirky things that make us all human are equally true of these people we see populating the pages of fiction, and the urge to see them portrayed truthfully, honestly, became something of a passion for me. I also observed firsthand the machinations of "the system," and came to both admire and despise it. There is a great deal of common everyday corruption and bigotry in the justice system, but there is also a lot of decency, honesty, and courage. We used to joke about juries, but I dread a system without them. God knows it's all frustrating, and far too expensive--money buys justice, period--but I still came away with a grudging respect for how things work here, especially compared to how they work in other countries.

As for research: I try to find a few knowledgeable people I can rely on in crucial areas: medicine, the law, police work, etc. I lean on them heavily. Then I also do a lot of Internet research, followed up with book research (because I don't trust everything I read on the web, and books always have greater detail and depth). Last, if I have any lingering questions, I look up experts in various fields. For Blood of Paradise, for example, I tracked down some hydrologists who had actually worked in El Salvador, and their help was invaluable in getting that part of the book right. (I also asked a doctor what would happen if you jammed a fork in somebody's throat.)
May 17, 2007 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 38
David Corbett May 17, 2007, 1:34pm EDT
Looking foreward to chatting with everyone at 2 PM eastern time, when I'll answer Adam's question and more.
 
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